Rule of the Monk; Or, Rome in the Nineteenth Century Read online

  Produced by David Widger

  RULE OF THE MONK

  OR, ROME IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

  By General Giuseppe Garibaldi

  1870.

  INTRODUCTION.

  The renowned writer of Caesar's "Commentaries" did not think itnecessary to furnish a preface for those notable compositions, andnobody has ever yet attempted to supply the deficiency--if it be one. Intruth, the custom is altogether of modern times. The ancient heroeswho became authors and wrote a book, left their work to speak foritself--"to sink or swim," we had almost said, but that is not exactlythe case. Caesar carried his "Commentaries" between his teeth when heswam ashore from the sinking galley at Alexandria, but it never occurredto him to supply posterity with a prefatory flourish. He begins thosefamous chapters with a soldierly abruptness and brevity--"Omnia Galliain tres partes" etc. The world has been contented to begin there alsofor the last two thousand years; and the fact is a great argumentagainst prefaces--especially since, as a rule, no one ever reads themtill the book itself has been perused.

  The great soldier who has here turned author, entering the literaryarena as a novelist, has also given his English translators no preface.But our custom demands one, and the nature of the present work requiresthat a few words should be written explanatory of the original purposeand character of the Italian MS. from which the subjoined pages aretranscribed. It would be unfair to Garibaldi if the extraordinaryvivacity and grace of his native style should be thought to be hereaccurately represented. The renowned champion of freedom possesses aneloquence as peculiar and real as his military genius, with a gift ofgraphic description and creative fancy which are but very imperfectlypresented in this version of his tale, partly from the particularcircumstances under which the version was prepared, and partly fromthe impossibility of rendering into English those subtle touches andpersonal traits which really make a book, as lines and light shadowsmake a countenance. Moreover, the Italian MS. itself, written in theautograph of the General, was compiled as the solace of heavy hours atVarignano, where the King of Italy, who owed to Garibaldi's sword thesplendid present of the Two Sicilies, was repaying that magnificentdotation with a shameful imprisonment. The time will come when thesepages--in their original, at least--will be numbered among the proofs ofthe poet's statement that--

  "Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage: Minds innocent and quiet take These for a hermitage."

  If there be many passages in the narrative where the signs are strongthat "the iron has entered into the soul," there are also a hundredwhere the spirit of the good and brave chieftain goes forth from hisinsulting incarceration to revel in scenes of natural beauty, to recallincidents of simple human love and kindness, to dwell upon heroicmemories, and to aspire towards glorious developments of humanity madefree, like the apostle's footsteps when the angel of the Lord struck offhis fetters, and he passed forth through the self-opened portals of hisprison.

  It would be manifestly unfair, nevertheless, to contrast a workwritten under such conditions with those elaborate specimens of modernnovel-writing with which our libraries abound. Probably, had GeneralGaribaldi ever read these productions, he would have declined to acceptthem as a model. He appears to have taken up here the form of the"novella," which belongs by right of prescription to his language andhis country, simply as a convenient way of imparting to his readers andto posterity the real condition and inner life of Rome during these lastfew eventful years, when the evil power of the Papacy has been decliningto its fall. Whereas, therefore, most novels consist of fiction foundedupon fact, this one may be defined rather as fact founded uponfiction, in the sense that the form alone and the cast of the story isfanciful--the rest being all pure truth lightly disguised. Garibaldihas here recited, with nothing more than a thin veil of incognito thrownover those names which it would have been painful or perilous to makeknown, that of which he himself has been cognizant as matters of factin the wicked city of the priests, where the power which has usurped thegentle name of Christ blasphemes Him with greater audacity of word andact as the hour of judgment approaches. Herein the reader may see whatgoes forward in the demure palaces of the princes of the Church, fromwhich the "Vicegerents of Heaven" are elected. Herein he may comprehendwhat kind of a system it is which French bayonets still defend--what theprivate life is of those who denounce humanity and anathematize science,and why Rome appears content with the government of Jesuits, and theliberty of hearing the Pope's mezzo-sopranos at the Sistine Chapel.He who has composed this narrative, at once so idyllic in itspastoral scenes--so tender and poetic in its domestic passages--soMetastasio-like in some of its episodes--and so terribly earnest in itsdenunciation of the wrongs and degradation of the Eternal City, isno unknown satirist. He is Garibaldi; he has been Triumvir of theSeven-hill-ed City, and Generalissimo of her army; her archives havebeen within his hands; he has held her keys, and fought behind herwalls; and, in four campaigns at least, since those glorious butmournful days, he has waged battle for the ancient city in the openfield. Here, then, is his description of "Rome in the NineteenthCentury"--not seen as tourists or dilettanti see her, clothed with theimaginary robes of her historic and classic empire, but seen naked tothe stained and scourged skin--affronted, degraded, defamed, bleedingfrom the hundred wounds where the leech-like priests hang and suck, and,by their vile organization, converted from the Rome which was mistressof the world, to a Rome which is the emporium of solemn farces,miracle-plays, superstitious hypocrisies, the capital of an evil insteadof a majestic kingdgom--the metropolis of monks instead of Caesars.

  To this discrowned Queen of Nations every page in the present volumetestifies the profound and ardent loyalty of Garibaldi's soul. Thepatriotism which most men feel towards the country of their birth is buta cold virtue compared with the burning devotion which fills the spiritof our warrior-novelist. It is as though the individuality of one of herantique Catos or Fabii was resuscitated, to protest, with deed and word,against the false and cunning tribe which have suborned the imperialcity to their purposes, and turned the monuments of Rome, as it were,into one Cloaca Maxima. The end of these things is probably approaching,although His Holiness is parodying the great Councils of past history,and pretending to give laws _urbi et orbi_, while the kingdoms rejecthis authority, and his palace is only defended by the aid of foreignbayonets. When Rome is freed from the Pope-king, and has been proclaimedthe capital of Italy, this book will be one of the memorials of thatextraordinary corruption and offense which the nineteenth centuryendured so long and patiently.

  The Author's desire to portray the state of society in Rome and aroundit, during the last years of the Papacy, has been paramount, and thenarrative only serves as the form for this design. Accordingly, thereader must not expect an elaborately compiled plot, with artisticdevelopments. He will, nevertheless, be sincerely interested in thefortunes and the fate of the beautiful and virtuous Roman ladies whofigure in the tale--of the gallant and dashing brigand of the Campagna,Orazio--the handsome Muzio--the brave and faithful Attilio, and theAuthor's evident favorite, "English Julia," whose share in the storyenables our renowned Author to exhibit his excessive affection forEngland and the English people. It only remains to commend these varionsheroes and heroines to the public, with the remark that the deficienciesof the work are due rather to the translation than to the original; forthe vigor and charm of the great Liberator's Italian is such as to showthat he might have rivalled Manzoni and Alfieri, if he had not preferredto emulate and equal the Gracchi and Rienzi.

  THE RULE OF THE MONK.

  PART THE FIRST.